In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (Jn 1:4-5 ESV) – Photo by Susanne Schuberth

Many of you might have heard or read about some people’s near-death experiences (NDEs) which they described as having been pulled through a dark tunnel toward the light. Having had a NDE myself (see My Testimony to be headlined ‘1995 – 2008: Years of the Wilderness’), I would say today that the ‘tunnel’ stands for our old self nature that is closely related to our body and soul. When people have experienced a NDE and come back into their ‘old’ life, something inside them has changed completely. Although their old nature is still there, a certain amount of God’s light has been poured into their own spirit so that their purpose in life could be changed. From then on they ‘know’ that love and gaining (spiritual) knowledge about God is most important. All other goals in life they once had have become less and less interesting. Basically, they long to be and live eternally in this light that they have come to know for a short time only. They might also realize that it is all about spiritual growth now, about being fully transformed into the image of God’s Son (cf. Rom 8:29; 2 Cor 3:18). Just recently I read a definition about this kind of spiritual growth. If we ask, “What does it mean to grow spiritually?” T.A. Sparks offers us an answer which is truly surprising. He said,

“Spiritual growth means that the spiritual strain goes out of our eyes, and our faces, and out of our voices, and that awful intensity, tenseness, goes. It is not a mark of spiritual growth at all. So let us get rid of false ideas about what it means to be a grown Christian. It means to be entering into His rest; we all need that.”

Entering His rest means to finally see and recognize Him at the end of the tunnel. As long as we are inside the tunnel, that is, as long as we are still captured by our own good and bad thoughts about our miserable old self (aka flesh) and about others, we only catch glimpses of His presence time and again. God and Christ may seem to remain blurry to our spiritual eyes until our heart has been purified to perceive God and His hand in all our circumstances (see Ps 11:7; Mt 5:8). But as soon as we have received God’s power to rest in Him despite all adversity, an immense change has taken place. Then we will no longer trust in our flesh and our old nature’s likes and dislikes, but we will solely behold Christ and His beauty, having arrived at that state of spiritual growth TAS spoke of above.

Indeed, an overwhelming supernatural transformation of heart and mind has occurred inside us without you and me knowing when and how all that has begun. This change has not happened from one day to the other. No, it has been a process, for sure. However, suddenly we see that we have lost any interest to look inside ourselves for salvation. We will have stopped trying to present a better version of our old self to others in order to convince them about our spiritual growth. Instead, we give up on our old nature completely. And eventually, when we have died and risen with our Redeemer Jesus Christ and received Him and His life in us, we behold Christ instead of beholding ourselves and are being changed into His image by doing so, even more and more every day. Not that we could ever behold Him on our own! As for all other blessings of divine origin, it must be God’s grace that draws us closer and closer. Furthermore, it is only God who can bestow this gift of continued prayer on us, since, praying without ceasing means nothing else than seeing the eternal God everywhere by abiding in Christ’s love permanently, too. And then we will finally also be able to really work effectively for Him. If we rest and abide in Christ, everything He will do through us will be exclusively God’s doing, given that we allow Him to guide us through His indwelling Spirit 24/7. The apostle Paul put it that way,

“For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:19-20 ESV)

Without having come to know the deep love of Christ for us, no human being will be inclined to really obey God out of love. So many still try to obey His commandments out of the fear of punishment. Brothers and sisters, that is not the way it should be. Perfect (God-given) love casts out this sort of fear and replaces it with childlike faith and unconditional love for our Creator. May God help us all to get there.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel…(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

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25 thoughts on “The Light at the End of the Tunnel”

I’m so glad I subscribed to your blog, because this speaks to me very much right now. A couple weeks ago I began rereading some of Watchman Nee’s The Spiritual Man. He wrote quite a bit about resting in the Lord and the delicate balance between trying not to live in the “soulish” life of our minds and emotions and imaginations, but not becoming passive in mind or will, either. It’s very hard to work on that and I lapse into forgetting. Your article comes as a reminder, and you put it very beautifully and succinctly. Thanks for sharing your path and your beautiful gift of writing about delicate spiritual matters.

Wow!! What an encouraging comment, dear Nancy! ❤ Thank you so much for sharing your lovely words and compliments with me! 🙂

I am happy to hear this post could serve as a reminder for you. I have not read that much from “The Spiritual Man” by Watchman Nee, but regarding the difference between soulish and spiritual life no one seemed to have written more about it than he did. And indeed, it is an important difference that can only be spiritually discerned.

This blog article by Susanne Schuberth brought back to mind the nature of her near death experience and how it changed her life and the lives of others with similar experiences, forever. All the things of this world have grown dim in comparison to the marvelous light of the love and knowledge she has found IN Christ. Oh, Father, may we all find this deep hunger for you and your heavenly places IN Christ. Amen

i enjoyed reading this. I had been to the end of the tunnel 3 x’s without experiencing a nde… i recall being pulled to the light and I was in a sleep state of some sort…when i realized the light as i travelled through the tunnel or darkness, I felt this unbelievable sense of warm, comfort , and golden light coming at me..it was beautiful, as soon as i realized what this light was i then suddenly went so fast backwards and woke up. In 2008 and 2003 I had two NDE’s for real. TOday, 5/17/16 is the anniversay of my second NDE and a TBI .. by God;s grace I am alive but he did give me a message to tell everyone as in my continuing mission. “Are you prepared to meet your maker?” I tell my story, the NDE and let people know that God wants to meet you but are you ready to meet Him? Well thank you for your wonderful blog… Elizabeth… and oh… Love is the ultimate part of this journey…Love heals as Jesus showed us in miracles… through his miracles He loved.

It was amazing for me to hear that you even had two NDEs and some more of these light encounters in your life! But I was sorry to read that you had to endure traumatic brain injury (TBI) at that, dear sister. 😦
I do not know how bad your injuries were and whether you had to undergo surgeries too. But I do hope and pray that God keeps you in His loving arms!

Your description of being pulled toward the golden light and feeling warmth and comfort, I second that. By the way, you were the first person who commented on my blog and shared having experienced near-death experiences. Thank you very much for doing so! 🙂 You are so right… “Love is the ultimate part of this journey…” and His LOVE truly heals, first our souls and sometimes our bodies too.

“So many still try to obey His commandments out of the fear of punishment. Brothers and sisters, that is not the way it should be. Perfect (God-given) love casts out this sort of fear and replaces it with childlike faith and unconditional love for our Creator.”

This is so, so true. That amazing grace, having His unmerited favor, just makes you want to be pleasing to Him, more than anything else in the world. When people get very legalistic and focused on rules, it completely baffles me, because that is not what motivates me at all.

Indeed, rules can only make us ‘function’ like robots while our hearts remain cold and distant. Motivation rather comes from being set free and from receiving His unmerited love. You are so right, rules are no motivation for me, either. Rules keep the wall around the heart up while grace helps us to open up to one another by getting more and more honest and vulnerable instead.

“But as soon as we have received God’s power to rest in Him despite all adversity, an immense change has taken place.” Just started a, foundations of Christianity Bible study, in our local community and right out of the box we made it clear the goal is “rest”, Amen and amen!

Well, I don’t know why I had such an experience, but I don’t think it is necessary in order to approach God. He can draw everyone closer and a NDE is only one possibility for Him to do so. I am sorry to hear that much of your motivation is fear of consequences if you miss the mark. The perfection of His love for us could be seen on the cross as Jesus cried out, “It is finished!”

You are such a precious sister, Pat. There is nothing to worry for you, I am sure! But I believe God must give you the assurance of His great love you into your own heart.

Dear sister in Christ, I found your blog thru a friend who I met on Internet ( Dimple). Last night I read this post and it had such a familiarity to it. I’ve had a few supernatural experiences in life but sometimes ” life” can bog you down… your post made me ” remember”- something that I needed to do right now. Thank you. I’ve subscribed to your blog. Blessings.

Thank you very much for your kind words and for the subscription to my blog, dear Connie. ❤

I am glad to hear that you found this post familiar regarding your own supernatural experiences. Indeed, life can be very hard and there are times when we cannot sense God at all. In these dark times my former supernatural experiences did not really help me. Instead, as I thought of them, I only felt that I had been cut off from them completely during these periods. But thank God, this spiritual journey knows not only downs but ups too until we have finally arrived at the top of the ladder and are received by our loving God Himself.

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